Thursday 3rd April 2014

We left Wales and returned to England. I won’t say it was a relief but there was the pleasure of returning from abroad. Wales is another country, mainly made of slate. There’s a certain impressive grimth. The churches look different with multi-faceted pitch roof surmounted by slate-hung spire. On the way out, in the Official Car with Xenon Driving lights, we saw a bi-lingual road sign. The Welsh part said, ‘Gywneth Paltrow’ and the English part said ‘Keep your distance.’ So now we know: ‘Gywneth Paltrow’ is the Welsh for ‘Keep your distance.’

What  a discovery! Val chatted agreeably as Greatnesses have done on car journeys since cars began. His subjects were concealed malnutrition and night-time starvation.

After many hours – concealed malnutrition is a far huger problem than generally recognised and as for night-time starvation…. we gained our family lands in the West. The Gay Mother refused to attend. Too busy in the garden with the coming of fine weather. Val and I were obliged to go to the other family’s mansion and don hard hats and hi-viz jackets. Only 4x4s could traverse the heaved up terrain. So we were driven up by our Agent who was cross at having to attach a flashing light to his machine. We reached a high knoll being mashed up by bulldozers. It was seething with men in hard hats and high viz jackets, undistinguishable from each other. Press were present but took no interest in Val or myself luckily. A thin, whippy wind got up. Across the valley we could see the devastation we had driven through after the Gay Mother’s 90th Birthday lunch (one of them) at the end of February and the awful old buildings soon to be demolished, now exposed without trees around and looking menacing.

Nothing much seemed to be happening. It was a strange social occasion attended by clones all in hard hats and high viz jackets. Many Australian voices. Eventually 4 or 5 of the clones (dignitaries in fact) poked ornamental spades into the ground and were photographed doing so by Press photographers. Val and I, frozen, got back into the Agent’s vehicle and waited to be driven back for the tea at the other family’s mansion. At which, men no longer in hard hats and high viz jackets turned out to be Government officials, contractors, county councillors. Val forged in and engaged. ‘Who are you?’ they said. ‘Adrian’s one of the owners,’ Val said. Indifference was only slightly tinged with resentment.

An Unusual Social Occasion

Clearance in Progress